Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

10 reviews

kelisabeth's review against another edition

adventurous emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Alcohol, Classism, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Miscarriage, Murder, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Grief, Infertility, Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

dorothea03's review

adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I found this book enjoyable even though there were a few aspects that I didn’t enjoy. From reading the blurb I thought this book was going to have strong feminist themes, but all of the characters have this obsession with getting pregnant (which isn’t bad but is a narrative that is forced on women) and the book barely passes the bechdel test. Once I got over my hopes of it being a progressive book, I enjoyed fine. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Miscarriage, Toxic relationship, Murder, and Infertility

Moderate: Child death, Self harm, Blood, Body horror, and Death

crystal83087's review

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Medical content, Infertility, Infidelity, Murder, Self harm, Excrement, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Body horror, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Abortion, Blood, Death, Medical trauma, Child death, Suicide, Toxic friendship, and Vomit

xandra_lyn's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Really great read, I couldn't put it down!! I definitely enjoyed the Eliza/Nella storylines better than Caroline's. In fact, Caroline bothered me a lot. I liked her ending, but she didn't act like a real woman...to the point I actually checked to see if the author was actually a man (for examples, see spoiler). I also wish the ending had been a little clearer on what happened to Eliza/Nella.

 Examples of Caroline not acting like a real woman:
1. Planning her 10 year anniversary trip when her period is due. Like, women know these things...they'd plan NOT to be on their period then. Also, she then eluded to wanting to make a baby on the honeymoon, and even IF a woman wanted to have sex on her period, she definitely wouldn't be making a baby. That's not how women's bodies work. I'm wondering if she wasn't expecting her period at first and then the author changed it...but that should have caught that in editing.

2. Not taking a pregnancy test. I get the author wanted to build suspense, but a normal woman would just take it. even if it was negative, the author could still have built suspense with a late period, because until you get the period or get a positive test, there IS a slight chance you might be pregnant. (For those who don't know, positive tests are like 100% accurate, but negatives have some wiggle room).

3. Keeping Eliza a secret at the end. No one - especially woman, who are so often invisible - deserves to be erased from history. As a woman AND a historian, I would never have kept a story of an interesting woman to myself. I don't think any woman would.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse

Moderate: Body horror and Blood

Minor: Pedophilia, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, and Misogyny

Emotional abuse: Caroline's husband Blood: a character struggles with an illness and spits clots of blood Pedophilia: Eliza's employer comes into her (she's 12) and begins to touch her stomach, legs, and thighs before a commotion interrupts him. It doesn't seem he raped her, but it's implied he did so with a previous maid. As awful and scarring as this would be, it was not detailed in graphic ways and so I put it low on the list. Medical trauma/content: it's about poison, so there's a fair amount of medical issues that happen Miscarriage: memory of a character, not graphic. *Not on other users' reviews: idk why people put body horror. Other than possibly the effects of the poisons, but it's not graphic

blissofalife's review

hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Not a long read, I appreciated the lack of fluff and how Penner kept the plot moving. Multiple POV can be jarring, but she made it seamless.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Infertility, Miscarriage, and Murder

Moderate: Classism

Minor: Body horror, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Blood, Child death, Death of parent, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, and Suicide

bookishplantmom's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book tells parallels stories of women in two periods linked by a curious artefact which survived several decades. Nella ran an apothecary in the past and in current day Caroline finds a vintage vial from the mysterious shop which leads her to unravel historical secrets. There is more to Caroline’s part of the book but it’s all kind of… pointless to me? I didn’t care one bit about her arc. I was most interested in her investigation. So while the narrative structure was interesting I don’t know that it added anything to the story because I didn’t care about the context Caroline was in. I can’t help but wonder if the book would have been better off simply sticking to Nella and telling her story straight on. It was cute and all following Caroline but because her investigation kept being interrupted by plot points which were ultimately anti-climactic I was left underwhelmed. Overall the book was steadily paced which wasn’t slow per se but monotone. The writing was ordinary to me nothing particularly whimsical or poetic which I was hoping for when I picked it up. Generally I had a good time with the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage and Murder

Moderate: Infidelity, Body horror, Infertility, and Vomit

becca_w_'s review

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Grief, Incest, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Child death, Classism, Infidelity, Medical content, Murder, and Sexism

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Violence, Medical trauma, Police brutality, and Vomit

Minor: Abandonment

annieliz's review

mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Abortion, Body horror, Blood, Cancer, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Vomit

bookishgoob's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Murder, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Sexism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

arlangrey17's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Abortion, Death, Death of parent, Infidelity, Infertility, and Murder